”There is no doubt that Pulsate has had an impact on the success of the Bank. It has been a key contributor to helping us retain customer engagement and grow market share.”
With over $1 billion in assets and more than a century serving the community, Commercial Bank of Texas has been helping Texans invest in themselves since 1901.
While a lot has changed over the last century, the core principles and vision of the Bank has remained steadfast. At the heart of CBTx lies the vision to be a strong community focused bank with the right products, for the right people, for the right reasons and in the right places.
As society becomes increasingly technologically advanced and customers choose the convenience of online and mobile banking, staying true to its vision has meant that CBTX needed to adapt. The challenge was to find a way to continue to deliver that personal touch, so intrinsic to customer engagement and loyalty, on a glass screen as it does in its branches.
“Community Banking is all about the personal touch – understanding our customers’ needs and being there with the right financial support at the right time is the cornerstone of what we do” explains Brad McGuire, Marketing Director, CBTx.
“But with more customers engaging online, community bankers have fewer and fewer opportunities to communicate in person – look our customers in the eye, shake their hands and get to know their individual needs and keep that personal connection alive”
“In today’s world it is this personal touch – that bedrock of customer loyalty and satisfaction – that we are in danger of losing” comments Brad.
Brad found the solution to the Bank’s challenges in Pulsate, a mobile first marketing communications platform.
“I first came across Pulsate at a conference – to be honest at the time I was overwhelmed with new information, I honestly didn’t think I could take anything more in – conference brain is what I call it!
“But then I saw a demo of Pulsate in action – the way it enabled Financial Institutions to easily create deeply personalized messages for individual customers about financial offers relevant to them and deliver them in real time, right to their cell phones and banking apps blew me away”.
“I knew for sure that this was the way I wanted to market. This was the answer to keeping that personal connection alive in the digital world” explains Brad.
Turning vision into Reality
Today, Pulsate is embedded in CBTx’s marketing communications strategy.
How does it work? Using data-driven personal and behavioral based insights Pulsate enables CBTx to create highly personalized and deeply relevant communications for customers and deliver them at the right time and in the right place using geo-fencing and location-based targeting.
“Pulsate gives us the ability to create customized, personal communications for our customers and deliver them when and where they need them” explains Brad.
“It allows us to understand what our customers need, when they need it and be there for them”
“For example, we can understand when our customers might be in the market for a home loan and get a personalized message, just for them, directly to their cell phones while they wait in their local realtor’s office – letting them know we are there for them and would love to help finance that home they are dreaming of” outlines Brad.
“Being there for our customers, as a trusted partner, while they make some of life’s big decisions creates a lasting impression and is at the heart of what we are all about as a Community Bank,” comments Brad.
“In truth the use-cases for Pulsate are endless – from home loans to auto-loans, to credit card offers right through to financial wellbeing and service-related offers – there is no limit.”
“But what’s special is that this is not about mass-marketing – sending generic communications to large groups or running catch all banner ads and hoping they are relevant to someone!”
“This is deeply personal – it’s what our front-line staff do in our branches but now we can do the same via a glass screen. It’s about knowing what a customer needs based on deep data driven insights and being there with that offer of help right at the time they need it,” summarizes Brad.
Seeing the results
“There is no doubt that Pulsate has had an impact on the success of the Bank. We first introduced it in the very early days of the Covid-19 pandemic – a time when we were all struggling to keep customers engaged and be there to help them in our new virtual world of interaction.”
“During those years, when many Banks were losing market share, CBTx increased its market share. While a lot of credit needs to be given to the hard work and exceptional level of service provided by our front-line staff, I firmly believe that Pulsate was also a key contributor to helping us retain customer engagement and grow market share while others lost it.”
“Pulsate helped us strength our relationships with our customers and engage new ones during one of the most difficult periods in banking history and it keeps delivering.”
“We are extremely thankful for our partnership with Pulsate and look forward to many years of using the platform to keep the personal touch alive in our world of digital and mobile banking,” concludes Brad.
